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Several people important to heathens and pagans have died recently. Singer Andrea Meyer of Hagalaz Runedance was shot with a bow and arrow in Norway. I did not know her personally, so I don't know if she is now in the arms of Hel, or has been taken into Valhalla or Folkvang due to dying by weapon, but I think perhaps she went where poets go, which is wherever they want.

I placed a copy of a Hagalaz Runedance album on my main house altar yesterday, along with other mementos of the recent dead. It joined a fabric memento I had just placed there, which participants in the memorial for Phyllis Stewart of Ravenhold wore at her memorial service, which you can see in the photo that illustrates this post. I was on my way to that funeral when I had an inspiration experience.

I've been out of commission and very quiet on the writing front for a while now.  I had my second hip replacement surgery in February (the first having been in July of 2019) and a delay in return to work in March with COVID-19 shutdowns. The fear and loss of life has weighed heavily on me, as with everyone and the continued uncertainty of just about everything in the world as we know it looms large. These and some personal changes have given me pause to reflect on everything and the usual forward momentum that I feel has been slowed by the accompanying heaviness with this introspection and I will admit that motivation has been in short supply (something I rarely have had issue with).

It's funny how when faced with stretches of time that are unstructured your mind goes down these paths of exploration that normally go unnoticed in the busy-ness of routine. One of the things that came up for me was the chance to take a look at my spiritual practice and path and how the past 30+ years have molded my current work. I also realized that I have been missing the unmistakable feeling when everything is new, undiscovered and exciting. So, I decided to take a walk down memory lane and take the time to re-member those things that filled me with the power of newness as a tonic, if you will, of much needed joy and inspiration.......

This is a story about inspiration. I was chatting online with a friend and received some inspiration, which came to me as a poetic description, and then he used that prompt to meditate and receive his own inspiration, which came to him as a formula for his craftwork. 

My local friend Derin Deschain is a perfumer. He is Romani, and a hedge rider and witch. And this week he has green hair, lol. He sells his perfumes from his Etsy store Cherry-ka's Trunk. 

We all have our ups and downs in life, and these can certainly vary dependent upon many factors: genetics, environment, disposition, culture, upbringing and more. The Druid faces the same challenges as many others do in their journey through life; being a Druid is no different in what the world throws at you.

What is different is how you deal with what comes your way. That doesn't mean as a Druid you won't suffer from depression, or heartbreak, grief or anxiety. But the methods that we use to face these challenges helps us to understand ourselves, and each other, a little better, and learn where we fit in the holistic scheme of things.

I've faced many challenges in my life, and still continue to do so on a daily basis. One challenge that I faced over this winter was my love and enthusiasm for dance had gone. For the last six months, I was seriously considering quitting dancing altogether. For over a year the question of my love for it had been rolling around in my brain. Over the winter holiday period, I was this close to giving it up completely. In fact, I had made up my mind that upon my return to England, I would inform my dance class.

It’s June. It’s cold and raining, and everything outside my window says ‘climate change’ to me in ways that make me deeply uneasy. High winds, torrential downpours, and at the same time, an explosion of hawthorn flowers like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The wild garlic and the horse chestnuts have been exuberant as well.

What does it means for Pagans? The ancestral dates of festivals no longer relate reliably to what’s happening. We don’t know what’s coming, or how it will impact on us. Our world is changing. The seasons are changing, the climate is changing.

The other day, in the Magical Experiments Facebook group, I asked the members of the group to share with me what challenges they are experiencing in their magical practice. One of the people shared that they were experiencing a slump in their magical practice. It just didn't feel exciting or shiny or magical like it had before. When I read what the person was experiencing, I really resonated with it because sometimes I've felt the same way about my magical practice. 

The first time I experienced a slump in my magical practice, I was really surprised at how hard it was to motivate myself to do the daily magical work I'd committed myself to doing. It wasn't just an off day. It stretched into days and then weeks. I was seriously worried that I'd lost touch with the magic.